Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding Africa and Feeding France’ is no exaggeration, not alarmist, and not revolutionary.”
Read More: http://bit.ly/2csz3QH

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and powerful in the region.
With more than a dozen journalists from 11 countries, the West Africa Leaks is the largest media collaboration in West African history.
It's the latest major investigation coordinated by the DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which teamed up with the Norbert ZongoCell for Investigative Journalism (CENOZO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
As Will Fitzgibbon, the AfricaProjectsCoordinator for ICIJ told us: "What we've seen with global and media collaborations, not only is it the more the merrier, but the more the punchier."
The Listening Post followed the investigation since February this year when the journalists involved first met in Dakar, Senegal to lay the groundwork for the project.
During a two-day workshop set up by the ICIJ and Cenozo, the journalists were given access to data in six major leaks held by the ICIJ, all relating to the murky world of offshore finance, and were shown how to navigate their away around roughly 30 million documents.
West Africa accounts for more than one-third of the estimated $50bn that leaves Africa each year illegally, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of six of its poorest countries combined.
Governments in the region seem to lack the ability, or the will, to prevent the illicit flow of money offshore.
West African news outlets are typically owned by politicians, or those close to them, so coverage steers away from holding the elite to account, contributing to a climate of impunity that has allowed this kind of corruption to go unchecked for decades.
And this is why it didn't take long for the journalists in this media collaboration to start uncovering some newsworthy stories in the data.
In Niger, an ambitious government-funded project never materialised despite large amounts of money changing hands.
In Togo, a businessman with close ties to the ruling family tried to wire money out of the country while two state companies in his charge were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Contrary to the Vienna Convention, a former Ghanaian ambassador to the United States set up an offshore company while in office to apparently conceal his share of a lucrative oil deal.
And in Liberia, it looks like a close friend of the former president was able to leverage her government connections to land a controversial mining license for a foreign company.
On May 22, the West Africa Leaks went live.
The journalists had overcome a number of obstacles along the way to produce a series of stories that were published simultaneously across the region. The stories lit up social media, but the official reaction was muted.
That governments were slow to respond to the revelations in the West Africa Leaks - or ignored them completely - came as no surprise.
What was more concerning was the lack of response from other news outlets in the region. One would expect stories about high-level corruption and financial irregularities in some of the poorest countries on earth to top the news agenda.
However, the subjects of these investigations are the very people who - in large part - control what gets reported in West Africa, and what does not.
For the journalists involved, however, the impact of projects like West Africa Leaks isn't to be measured in the here and now.
As Emmanuel Dogbevi of GhanaBusinessNews told us: "What no one can take away from the West Africa Leaks is the fact that it's historic, it's the first time you have this number of journalists within the sub-region collaborating and working together on a project, which itself adds to the value of the work we do as journalists. And we hope that in the long term, that collaboration will serve as inspiration for other African journalists."
Contributors:
Will Fitzgibbon, Africa Projects coordinator, ICIJ
Sandrine Sawadogo, reporter, L'Economiste du Faso
Maxime Domegni, reporter, L'Alternative
Alloycious David, reporter, The News
Emmanuel Dogbevi, managing editor, Ghana Business News
MoussaAskar, editor, L'Evenement
Daniela Lepiz, coordinator, Cenozo
- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

History

The history of West Africa can be divided into five major periods: first, its prehistory, in which the first human settlers arrived, developed agriculture, and made contact with peoples to the north; the second, the Iron Age empires that consolidated both intra-African, and extra-African trade, and developed centralized states; third, Major polities flourished, which would undergo an extensive history of contact with non-Africans; fourth, the colonial period, in which Great Britain and France controlled nearly the whole of the region; fifth, the post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed.

West Africa (magazine)

West Africa (1917-2005) was a weekly news magazine that was published in London for over 80 years and closed in 2005.

History

It was first published on 3 February 1917 from offices in Fleet Street, with the commercial backing of Elder Dempster Shipping Line and the trading company John Holt. It was to appear weekly, at a price of sixpence per copy. Its first editorial explained its raison d'etre:

The magazine was intended as "an open forum for the discussion of every question involving the welfare of the peoples of West Africa.... It offers itself as a friend to every cause which holds out a prospect of advancing the position of West Africa as a prosperous and contented member of the Empire...".

Having begun as a source of news about events and issues in the British colonies of West Africa as well as a link between the colonial power and its administrators in the field, for 80 years West Africa magazine was considered a major source of information about the region.

In the mid-1960s is was the target of a successful takeover bid by Cecil Harmsworth King’s media empire. In 1978 it began to publish poetry and fiction by some of the continent's leading writers. The literary editor from 1978 was Robert Fraser, followed in 1981 by the Booker Prize–winning novelist Ben Okri. In 1993 a commemorative volume was published, entitled West Africa Over 75 Years: Selections from the Raw Material of History, edited by the magazine's then editor, Kaye Whiteman (1936-2014), and researched by Kole Omotoso, Ferdinand Dennis and Alfred Zack-Williams.

Background

Africa and De viris illustribus were partially inspired by Petrarch's visit to Rome in 1337. According to Bergin and Wilson (p. ix). It seems very likely that the inspirational vision of the Eternal City must have been the immediate spur to the design of the Africa and probably De viris illustribus as well. After returning from his grand tour, the first sections of Africa were written in the valley of Vaucluse. Petrarch recalls

The fact that he abandoned it early on is not entirely correct since it was far along when he received two invitations (from Rome and from Paris) in September 1340 each asking him to accept the crown as poet laureate. A preliminary form of the poem was completed in time for the laurel coronation April 8, 1341 (Easter Sunday).

Chessington World of Adventures

Chessington World of Adventures Resort (often abbreviated to just "Chessington" or "CWoA") is a theme park, zoo and hotel complex that lies 12 miles (19km) southwest of Central London, England in the Chessington area of the Kingston upon Thamesborough. Historically opened as Chessington Zoo in 1931, a theme park was developed alongside the zoo, opening on June 7, 1987, making it the first themed amusement park in Britain. Owned and operated by Merlin Entertainments since 2007. Chessington has two on-site resort hotels, the Safari Hotel opened in 2007, and was followed by the opening of the Azteca Hotel in mid 2014.

Chessington World of Adventures theme park centres around immersive areas and high quality themes from around the world. It currently has ten areas including the Market Square, Mystic East, Mexicana, Pirates Cove, Transylvania, and Forbidden Kingdom. Land of the Dragons opened in 2004 for children although it includes the intense spinning coaster Dragon's Fury, and in 2010 Wild Asia replaced the area known as Beanoland. In 2012 Africa replaced ToyTown, and following this Chessington introduced the new area ZUFARI in 2013. Major attractions include: Vampire, Bubbleworks, KOBRA, Zufari: Ride into Africa and Scorpion Express.

History

The first settlers of northern McLennan County arrived in the 1840s. They were farm and ranch families drawn from the east by the rich lands made available by the government sale of land to build schools in Texas. The area farmers cultivated the land and grew cotton, wheat, and grain sorghum, and raised cattle. The farming community centered around a freshwater spring that became known as Bold Springs. In 1860, Bold Springs had a population of about 300 and provided services such as a blacksmith, churches, and a post office.

The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was laid between Hillsboro and Waco in the fall of 1881. The path of the railroad passed through land owned by Thomas West, who had moved to the area in 1859. He farmed land that he had purchased and served as postmaster of Bold Springs. A train depot was built on the land he sold to the railroad company and the land running beside the tracks was divided into small sections and sold to people wanting to start businesses. The new depot included a post office, and from that time forward it was known as the West Post Office. Mr. West served as postmaster and opened the first general store. He became a successful businessman and later owned a hotel, a furniture store, and a bank.

99 West

99 West City Creek condominium tower (originally known as Promontory on South Temple) is a residential condominium building in the City Creek development in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The building rises 375 feet (114m) tall, making it the third-tallest building in Salt Lake City, and contains 30 floors. Construction was completed before the official grand opening of the City Creek mall. The tower contains 185 individually-owned residential units.

History

99 West was the name given to the 30 storey skyscraper but the residential tower was never actually given an official name. The residential skyscraper was planned with the City Creek Center however, 99 West was only going to be constructed when the majority of units had sold in other planned residential blocks. The skyscraper was one of the later buildings to be completed as a result, despite that it was completed before the grand opening of the center.

Design

The design of the 375 feet (114m) tall residential skyscraper consists of a unique brick facade and is the 3rd tallest skyscraper in Salt Lake City. Located in the City Creek Center, 99 West is the tallest skyscraper in the redevelopment making it an icon in Salt Lake City. Just like The Regent, there is direct access to the center as well as its underground parking lot.

West African Tax Officials Work to Meet Basic Needs, Improve Equity

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

Understanding Africa's tax systems

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

5:37

[West Africa Leaks] Mauritius should tell the world what it is doing, says ICIJ’s Fitzgibbon

[West Africa Leaks] Mauritius should tell the world what it is doing, says ICIJ’s Fitzgibbon

[West Africa Leaks] Mauritius should tell the world what it is doing, says ICIJ’s Fitzgibbon

14 African Nations Being Forced By France to Pay Taxes for the ‘Benefits’ of Colonialism

14 African Nations Being Forced By France to Pay Taxes for the ‘Benefits’ of Colonialism

14 African Nations Being Forced By France to Pay Taxes for the ‘Benefits’ of Colonialism

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding Africa and Feeding France’ is no exaggeration, not alarmist, and not revolutionary.”
Read More: http://bit.ly/2csz3QH

49:45

African countries continue to pay the colonial tax to France VIEWS ON THE CONTINENT OF 08 03 2018

African countries continue to pay the colonial tax to France VIEWS ON THE CONTINENT OF 08 03 2018

African countries continue to pay the colonial tax to France VIEWS ON THE CONTINENT OF 08 03 2018

The making and the breaking of the West Africa Leaks | The Listening Post

The making and the breaking of the West Africa Leaks | The Listening Post

The making and the breaking of the West Africa Leaks | The Listening Post

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and powerful in the region.
With more than a dozen journalists from 11 countries, the West Africa Leaks is the largest media collaboration in West African history.
It's the latest major investigation coordinated by the DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which teamed up with the Norbert ZongoCell for Investigative Journalism (CENOZO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
As Will Fitzgibbon, the AfricaProjectsCoordinator for ICIJ told us: "What we've seen with global and media collaborations, not only is it the more the merrier, but the more the punchier."
The Listening Post followed the investigation since February this year when the journalists involved first met in Dakar, Senegal to lay the groundwork for the project.
During a two-day workshop set up by the ICIJ and Cenozo, the journalists were given access to data in six major leaks held by the ICIJ, all relating to the murky world of offshore finance, and were shown how to navigate their away around roughly 30 million documents.
West Africa accounts for more than one-third of the estimated $50bn that leaves Africa each year illegally, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of six of its poorest countries combined.
Governments in the region seem to lack the ability, or the will, to prevent the illicit flow of money offshore.
West African news outlets are typically owned by politicians, or those close to them, so coverage steers away from holding the elite to account, contributing to a climate of impunity that has allowed this kind of corruption to go unchecked for decades.
And this is why it didn't take long for the journalists in this media collaboration to start uncovering some newsworthy stories in the data.
In Niger, an ambitious government-funded project never materialised despite large amounts of money changing hands.
In Togo, a businessman with close ties to the ruling family tried to wire money out of the country while two state companies in his charge were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Contrary to the Vienna Convention, a former Ghanaian ambassador to the United States set up an offshore company while in office to apparently conceal his share of a lucrative oil deal.
And in Liberia, it looks like a close friend of the former president was able to leverage her government connections to land a controversial mining license for a foreign company.
On May 22, the West Africa Leaks went live.
The journalists had overcome a number of obstacles along the way to produce a series of stories that were published simultaneously across the region. The stories lit up social media, but the official reaction was muted.
That governments were slow to respond to the revelations in the West Africa Leaks - or ignored them completely - came as no surprise.
What was more concerning was the lack of response from other news outlets in the region. One would expect stories about high-level corruption and financial irregularities in some of the poorest countries on earth to top the news agenda.
However, the subjects of these investigations are the very people who - in large part - control what gets reported in West Africa, and what does not.
For the journalists involved, however, the impact of projects like West Africa Leaks isn't to be measured in the here and now.
As Emmanuel Dogbevi of GhanaBusinessNews told us: "What no one can take away from the West Africa Leaks is the fact that it's historic, it's the first time you have this number of journalists within the sub-region collaborating and working together on a project, which itself adds to the value of the work we do as journalists. And we hope that in the long term, that collaboration will serve as inspiration for other African journalists."
Contributors:
Will Fitzgibbon, Africa Projects coordinator, ICIJ
Sandrine Sawadogo, reporter, L'Economiste du Faso
Maxime Domegni, reporter, L'Alternative
Alloycious David, reporter, The News
Emmanuel Dogbevi, managing editor, Ghana Business News
MoussaAskar, editor, L'Evenement
Daniela Lepiz, coordinator, Cenozo
- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

About high tax rates in African countries

West African Tax Officials Work to Meet Basic Needs, Improve Equity

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

Understanding Africa's tax systems

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

published: 10 Mar 2016

[West Africa Leaks] Mauritius should tell the world what it is doing, says ICIJ’s Fitzgibbon

www.ionnews.mu
Mauritius, a tax haven? “In some ways, the definition [of that term] is in the eyes of the beholder,” reckons Will Fitzgibbon, reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). But, adds the journalist, that is how tax inspectors across West Africa refer to Mauritius.
Fitzgibbon is the author of an article on the Mauritius-Senegal tax treaty, published last week by the ICIJ in the wake of its West Africa Leak series. Article which the Economic Development Board rebutted strongly. Rabin Bhujun of IONNews met with the coordinator of Africa and Middle East partnerships with ICIJ in Washington on May 31st.
The ICIJ reporter reckons that Mauritius “is already doing a lot in terms of showing the willingness to be seen to be acting”. Citing as example...

14 African Nations Being Forced By France to Pay Taxes for the ‘Benefits’ of Colonialism

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding...

published: 16 Sep 2016

African countries continue to pay the colonial tax to France VIEWS ON THE CONTINENT OF 08 03 2018

About high tax rates in African countries

West African Tax Officials Work to Meet Basic Needs, Improve Equity

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citiz...

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding Africa and Feeding France’ is no exaggeration, not alarmist, and not revolutionary.”
Read More: http://bit.ly/2csz3QH

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding Africa and Feeding France’ is no exaggeration, not alarmist, and not revolutionary.”
Read More: http://bit.ly/2csz3QH

The making and the breaking of the West Africa Leaks | The Listening Post

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore fina...

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and powerful in the region.
With more than a dozen journalists from 11 countries, the West Africa Leaks is the largest media collaboration in West African history.
It's the latest major investigation coordinated by the DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which teamed up with the Norbert ZongoCell for Investigative Journalism (CENOZO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
As Will Fitzgibbon, the AfricaProjectsCoordinator for ICIJ told us: "What we've seen with global and media collaborations, not only is it the more the merrier, but the more the punchier."
The Listening Post followed the investigation since February this year when the journalists involved first met in Dakar, Senegal to lay the groundwork for the project.
During a two-day workshop set up by the ICIJ and Cenozo, the journalists were given access to data in six major leaks held by the ICIJ, all relating to the murky world of offshore finance, and were shown how to navigate their away around roughly 30 million documents.
West Africa accounts for more than one-third of the estimated $50bn that leaves Africa each year illegally, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of six of its poorest countries combined.
Governments in the region seem to lack the ability, or the will, to prevent the illicit flow of money offshore.
West African news outlets are typically owned by politicians, or those close to them, so coverage steers away from holding the elite to account, contributing to a climate of impunity that has allowed this kind of corruption to go unchecked for decades.
And this is why it didn't take long for the journalists in this media collaboration to start uncovering some newsworthy stories in the data.
In Niger, an ambitious government-funded project never materialised despite large amounts of money changing hands.
In Togo, a businessman with close ties to the ruling family tried to wire money out of the country while two state companies in his charge were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Contrary to the Vienna Convention, a former Ghanaian ambassador to the United States set up an offshore company while in office to apparently conceal his share of a lucrative oil deal.
And in Liberia, it looks like a close friend of the former president was able to leverage her government connections to land a controversial mining license for a foreign company.
On May 22, the West Africa Leaks went live.
The journalists had overcome a number of obstacles along the way to produce a series of stories that were published simultaneously across the region. The stories lit up social media, but the official reaction was muted.
That governments were slow to respond to the revelations in the West Africa Leaks - or ignored them completely - came as no surprise.
What was more concerning was the lack of response from other news outlets in the region. One would expect stories about high-level corruption and financial irregularities in some of the poorest countries on earth to top the news agenda.
However, the subjects of these investigations are the very people who - in large part - control what gets reported in West Africa, and what does not.
For the journalists involved, however, the impact of projects like West Africa Leaks isn't to be measured in the here and now.
As Emmanuel Dogbevi of GhanaBusinessNews told us: "What no one can take away from the West Africa Leaks is the fact that it's historic, it's the first time you have this number of journalists within the sub-region collaborating and working together on a project, which itself adds to the value of the work we do as journalists. And we hope that in the long term, that collaboration will serve as inspiration for other African journalists."
Contributors:
Will Fitzgibbon, Africa Projects coordinator, ICIJ
Sandrine Sawadogo, reporter, L'Economiste du Faso
Maxime Domegni, reporter, L'Alternative
Alloycious David, reporter, The News
Emmanuel Dogbevi, managing editor, Ghana Business News
MoussaAskar, editor, L'Evenement
Daniela Lepiz, coordinator, Cenozo
- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and powerful in the region.
With more than a dozen journalists from 11 countries, the West Africa Leaks is the largest media collaboration in West African history.
It's the latest major investigation coordinated by the DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which teamed up with the Norbert ZongoCell for Investigative Journalism (CENOZO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
As Will Fitzgibbon, the AfricaProjectsCoordinator for ICIJ told us: "What we've seen with global and media collaborations, not only is it the more the merrier, but the more the punchier."
The Listening Post followed the investigation since February this year when the journalists involved first met in Dakar, Senegal to lay the groundwork for the project.
During a two-day workshop set up by the ICIJ and Cenozo, the journalists were given access to data in six major leaks held by the ICIJ, all relating to the murky world of offshore finance, and were shown how to navigate their away around roughly 30 million documents.
West Africa accounts for more than one-third of the estimated $50bn that leaves Africa each year illegally, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of six of its poorest countries combined.
Governments in the region seem to lack the ability, or the will, to prevent the illicit flow of money offshore.
West African news outlets are typically owned by politicians, or those close to them, so coverage steers away from holding the elite to account, contributing to a climate of impunity that has allowed this kind of corruption to go unchecked for decades.
And this is why it didn't take long for the journalists in this media collaboration to start uncovering some newsworthy stories in the data.
In Niger, an ambitious government-funded project never materialised despite large amounts of money changing hands.
In Togo, a businessman with close ties to the ruling family tried to wire money out of the country while two state companies in his charge were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Contrary to the Vienna Convention, a former Ghanaian ambassador to the United States set up an offshore company while in office to apparently conceal his share of a lucrative oil deal.
And in Liberia, it looks like a close friend of the former president was able to leverage her government connections to land a controversial mining license for a foreign company.
On May 22, the West Africa Leaks went live.
The journalists had overcome a number of obstacles along the way to produce a series of stories that were published simultaneously across the region. The stories lit up social media, but the official reaction was muted.
That governments were slow to respond to the revelations in the West Africa Leaks - or ignored them completely - came as no surprise.
What was more concerning was the lack of response from other news outlets in the region. One would expect stories about high-level corruption and financial irregularities in some of the poorest countries on earth to top the news agenda.
However, the subjects of these investigations are the very people who - in large part - control what gets reported in West Africa, and what does not.
For the journalists involved, however, the impact of projects like West Africa Leaks isn't to be measured in the here and now.
As Emmanuel Dogbevi of GhanaBusinessNews told us: "What no one can take away from the West Africa Leaks is the fact that it's historic, it's the first time you have this number of journalists within the sub-region collaborating and working together on a project, which itself adds to the value of the work we do as journalists. And we hope that in the long term, that collaboration will serve as inspiration for other African journalists."
Contributors:
Will Fitzgibbon, Africa Projects coordinator, ICIJ
Sandrine Sawadogo, reporter, L'Economiste du Faso
Maxime Domegni, reporter, L'Alternative
Alloycious David, reporter, The News
Emmanuel Dogbevi, managing editor, Ghana Business News
MoussaAskar, editor, L'Evenement
Daniela Lepiz, coordinator, Cenozo
- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

West African Tax Officials Work to Meet Basic Needs, Improve Equity

Many countries in West Africa struggle to collect the revenue needed to provide basic services to their citizens: clean water, education, electricity. And citizens are watching – many pay taxes and want to see those services improve. In May, tax officials from Francophone countries came together for a conference in Lome, Togo, to discuss some of the challenges they face in collecting tax revenue. They raised many issues, including property tax collection, setting appropriate tax policies for extractive industries, and bringing informal businesses into the tax system. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank, the ResearchCentre for Leaders of Tax Administrations (CREDAF), the Togolese revenue authority (OTR) and the French government.

Understanding Africa's tax systems

With the 2016 BudgetSpeech fresh in the minds of South Africans, Invest Africa turns its focus to the efficiency of Africa's tax systems and whether they are coping with the rising pressures that they are expected to respond to. To help us understand the progress that tax administrators are having on the continent CNBC Africa is joined by; Dermot Gaffeny, Associate Director for Tax at KPMG and AdvocateLucia Hlongwane Africa Tax Leader at EY Advisory.

14 African Nations Being Forced By France to Pay Taxes for the ‘Benefits’ of Colonialism

Read full story: https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/30/14-african-nations-being-forced-by-france-to-pay-taxes-for-the-benefits-of-colonialism/
Fourteen nations listed below are in agreement to deposit 65 percent of all foreign currency reserves in a shared reserve fund to France. The countries established the Monetary and Economic Union of West Africa. Their currency, the CFA-Franc, is printed under supervision of the FrenchNational Bank in Chamaliéres, France.
Christ of Lehmann wrote for nsnbc.me in 2012, “France is indebting and enslaving Africans by means of Africa’s own wealth; for example: 12.0000 billion invested at three percent creates 360 billion in interests which France grants as credits to Africa at an interest rate of five to six percent or more. The allegory of ‘Bleeding Africa and Feeding France’ is no exaggeration, not alarmist, and not revolutionary.”
Read More: http://bit.ly/2csz3QH

The making and the breaking of the West Africa Leaks | The Listening Post

In this special edition of The Listening Post, we track the making and breaking of the West Africa Leaks, an investigative series looking into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and powerful in the region.
With more than a dozen journalists from 11 countries, the West Africa Leaks is the largest media collaboration in West African history.
It's the latest major investigation coordinated by the DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which teamed up with the Norbert ZongoCell for Investigative Journalism (CENOZO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
As Will Fitzgibbon, the AfricaProjectsCoordinator for ICIJ told us: "What we've seen with global and media collaborations, not only is it the more the merrier, but the more the punchier."
The Listening Post followed the investigation since February this year when the journalists involved first met in Dakar, Senegal to lay the groundwork for the project.
During a two-day workshop set up by the ICIJ and Cenozo, the journalists were given access to data in six major leaks held by the ICIJ, all relating to the murky world of offshore finance, and were shown how to navigate their away around roughly 30 million documents.
West Africa accounts for more than one-third of the estimated $50bn that leaves Africa each year illegally, more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of six of its poorest countries combined.
Governments in the region seem to lack the ability, or the will, to prevent the illicit flow of money offshore.
West African news outlets are typically owned by politicians, or those close to them, so coverage steers away from holding the elite to account, contributing to a climate of impunity that has allowed this kind of corruption to go unchecked for decades.
And this is why it didn't take long for the journalists in this media collaboration to start uncovering some newsworthy stories in the data.
In Niger, an ambitious government-funded project never materialised despite large amounts of money changing hands.
In Togo, a businessman with close ties to the ruling family tried to wire money out of the country while two state companies in his charge were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Contrary to the Vienna Convention, a former Ghanaian ambassador to the United States set up an offshore company while in office to apparently conceal his share of a lucrative oil deal.
And in Liberia, it looks like a close friend of the former president was able to leverage her government connections to land a controversial mining license for a foreign company.
On May 22, the West Africa Leaks went live.
The journalists had overcome a number of obstacles along the way to produce a series of stories that were published simultaneously across the region. The stories lit up social media, but the official reaction was muted.
That governments were slow to respond to the revelations in the West Africa Leaks - or ignored them completely - came as no surprise.
What was more concerning was the lack of response from other news outlets in the region. One would expect stories about high-level corruption and financial irregularities in some of the poorest countries on earth to top the news agenda.
However, the subjects of these investigations are the very people who - in large part - control what gets reported in West Africa, and what does not.
For the journalists involved, however, the impact of projects like West Africa Leaks isn't to be measured in the here and now.
As Emmanuel Dogbevi of GhanaBusinessNews told us: "What no one can take away from the West Africa Leaks is the fact that it's historic, it's the first time you have this number of journalists within the sub-region collaborating and working together on a project, which itself adds to the value of the work we do as journalists. And we hope that in the long term, that collaboration will serve as inspiration for other African journalists."
Contributors:
Will Fitzgibbon, Africa Projects coordinator, ICIJ
Sandrine Sawadogo, reporter, L'Economiste du Faso
Maxime Domegni, reporter, L'Alternative
Alloycious David, reporter, The News
Emmanuel Dogbevi, managing editor, Ghana Business News
MoussaAskar, editor, L'Evenement
Daniela Lepiz, coordinator, Cenozo
- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

History

The history of West Africa can be divided into five major periods: first, its prehistory, in which the first human settlers arrived, developed agriculture, and made contact with peoples to the north; the second, the Iron Age empires that consolidated both intra-African, and extra-African trade, and developed centralized states; third, Major polities flourished, which would undergo an extensive history of contact with non-Africans; fourth, the colonial period, in which Great Britain and France controlled nearly the whole of the region; fifth, the post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed.